Five shades of grape

We have been, and will be, living between for a while. I feel a little like a secret agent, I can't tell you where I am! I've been splitting my time between Green Bay and Saginaw, but the last thing I want to do is spell out that either place is empty and open for nefarious shopping.

I can tell you that I love Green Bay! They have five, FIVE, quilt shops. FIVE! Each one has a different style and inventory. Being the supportive shopper that I am, I managed to find something wonderful to bring home with me at each shop.

My first quilting mission in GB was to find better purples for my Fine Romance quilt. It seems that I always want the color that isn't on the shelf, the color between the colors there. For this quilt, I wanted a purple that was the color of grape jelly, a rich purple that is not quite magenta, but definitely not a bluey periwinkle. No surprise that it was such a challenge to find. But with all these quilt shops available, I finally managed to find my five shades of grape.

One of my favorite part of designing quilts is figuring out how to use my fabric the most efficiently I can. Being that I consider myself an appliquist first, a piecer second, leaving the largest scraps possible gives me more applique opportunities.

Since we need so little of our fabrics for the pieced blocks I first cut the square for the quarter-square triangles from the end opposite the selvage, which left just enough to cut the strip for our smaller squares.

(I have no idea why these pictures are coming up rotated. A painfully slow internet connection might have something to do with it.)

I just love it when strip cutting ends up with so little waste. The fabric is doubled over in this picture, giving me the four squares that I needed for my hourglass block.

Moving is such an emotional roller coaster. We are excited to start a new chapter, and having tons of fun looking for just the right place to enjoy life as empty nesters. Selling a house is a lot like going to prom without a date. We are helpless wallflowers as we wait for someone else to love the home we've loved for so many years.

My new favorite saying:
They say that God never gives you more than you can handle. God must think I'm a badass.